


Rooted

by night_reveals



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/night_reveals/pseuds/night_reveals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ficlet for the lovely <a href="http://shiroi-ten.livejournal.com/">shiroi_ten</a> per her request.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Rooted

**Author's Note:**

> Ficlet for the lovely [shiroi_ten](http://shiroi-ten.livejournal.com/) per her request.

The roots of the great tree rolled beneath him, quicker and quicker in unstoppable waves. He tried to run, at first, hitting one then another with his body. But they sprung up faster than even he, a Genome, could keep up with. The light from outside glowed, barely enough for Kuja to see by; leaves fell and cut open his face, a thick line of blood from their unnaturally sharp edges swelling on his cheek. Before he could even think to duck, a bough slammed into his stomach, knocking him onto the mud covered ground below. Little tendrils from the tree began to twist in his blue hair, _pulling_ his head back, back, back --

Kuja awoke with a stifled gasp.

"Mhhm." Next to him, Zidane shifted in his sleep. His tail ran over the middle of Kuja's body, gentling Kuja even as its owner slept; Kuja threw it off, as he always did. The dark wood shutters on the tiny cabin they stayed in were open, but only a few rays shot through the slats. Not even full dawn, yet. Kuja raised his hand to his shorn hair, where a month ago they'd had to cut away the branches that had twined into him during his hours under the Iifa Tree. All the cuts and bruises were healed as much as they ever would be, leaving him with scars on his face and haunted eyes. He fisted what hair remained in anger.

"Buh--" Zidane snuffled next to him, then raised his head, bleary. "'s wrong?"

"Hush," said Kuja, putting a hand on Zidane's muscled shoulder to guide him back to the pillows. "Everything is fine, now."

 

Kuja was out drawing water from their deep well when Zidane found him later that morning.

"Still not sleeping, huh?"

Pausing in drawing up the bucket, Kuja looked over his shoulder.

"No."

“Why not?”

“You never stay on your side of the bed.”

There was quiet for a few more seconds, before Kuja heard Zidane pad closer. A human would not have heard his footsteps.

"You know, used to be you'd never shut up. You'd just go on and on and on. Lots of soliloquies," said Zidane.

Kuja dropped the rope. He heard the bucket _whoosh_ through the air, hitting the water below with a distant splash.

"That's not me anymore," he said brusquely, turning to face off with Zidane. It was still strange to not feel his hair brushing his back, or fan out behind him when he moved. He put a hand self-consciously to his skull.

"Stop touching it. You look fine." Zidane closed the modest space between them, putting a hand on the stone behind Kuja and smiling, his sharp teeth glittering in the morning light. "Good, even."

"Of course," said Kuja, unable to give the words any truth. He looked at Zidane, lithe and compact. They were almost the same build, but Zidane's life as a thief meant he had more heft and rougher hands. He also let his soft brown tail swish out behind him as it pleased, even using it in day-to-day life. Kuja thought of his own tail, a blue and silver color that had earned him humans’ ire for years. He could not imagine how Zidane had found friends who accepted him for what he was; Kuja had never thought it possible.

Using the speed that came naturally to his form, Kuja spun on Zidane and pushed him against the stones, harsh enough that they must have been digging into Zidane’s skin even through his leathers -- perhaps his easy smiles wouldn’t come so easy now. Kuja grinned as he felt Zidane tense, both their muscles bunched and ready for a fight. It felt like ages since Kuja’d fought anything, and he a little spark flared in his stomach.

Until Zidane started laughing. All the fight that Kuja had felt fled like so much water under his fingers, till Zidane was boneless, lounging against the stone wall of the well like he’d wanted all along to be pinned there.

“Don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” Kuja tighted his grip, but Zidane keep his moue of utter carelessness, only letting his tail come around to his front. Kuja pulled back. “That thing. Get it out of my face.”

“You’ll survive.” Zidane was smiling again, running his tail up Kuja’s front, slipping it under his shirt.

And in-between breaths, the fight in Kuja became something else entirely, all the moments he’d seen this stupid little Genome and hated him with a passion coalescing to now, Zidane pinned under his hands, laughing happily despite it.

Kuja muffled the laughter with a kiss.


End file.
